Shadow of Love
by Kayjoel
Summary: Jean has a lover that appears to her only in her dreams. Why dose she love him? She has no idea. A new student joins the school with extraordinary mental powers. Professor-X is getting some desturbing telepathic interference. What could it all mean?
1. Chapter 1

**Not my 1st fanfic, but my 1st X-men fanfic. Plans on getting more exciting as more ch. are added. But that depends on the readers. So please R&R. **

**Thanks **

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

Jean tossed and turned upon the mattress. First, the pillow fell between the bed and the headboard, then she was uncovered and the blanket slid off the bed; but she was oblivious to all of this. She groaned, and turned, then tossed again, then spun back to the other side of the bed. A word escaped her lips.

"Gavin…"

* * *

Jean was dreaming, that she knew. But as to the nature of the dream, she had long left from trying to figure that one out. This dream world consisted of no concretes, as did all dreams; but this one was different. I was so vivid, yet so uncertain. At one moment, one could be so sure, then at another, so confused. Colors. Colors swirled about her like living, flying serpents.

She was suddenly in a village…no…on a mountain. Now the mountain was a valley. She walked slowly through the valley pass, and found herself stopping abruptly on the edge of an abyss. But beyond the abyss…was that a boy that she saw? A boy sitting with his legs crossed, clothed only in a brown grass skirt. No, he wasn't a boy, he was a teen! Wait, now a man! A very young man; a very young and very…_very_ handsome man. Jean couldn't help but have a liking for him. So handsome, so built, so, so…perfect!

"Who are you?" whispered Jean. To her surprise, the man answered her. Had he heard her all the way from the other side of the gulf?

"Gavin," he said.

_Gavin_ Jean thought on the name, or had she said it? She wanted to get to him so badly. She was drawn to him. Why? She had no idea. Maybe because he was the kind of guy that every girl wanted. Tall, handsome, and with a slight tan; like a god out of Greek mythology. And even though she'd never met him, she seemed to know everything about him; or about his character that is. She seemed to know that he was a kind and gentle person with a genuine…what as this…_love_? For whom? For her?

The man answered her thoughts, "For you."

Those words seem to sweep Jean off her feet, literally. Before she knew what was happening, she was falling into the abyss. She screamed to the top of her lungs.

But suddenly, a strong hand caught her by the arm and pulled her up, quite easily, from the abyss. A great comfort fell over her like the warm rays of the sun as two great arms wrapped around Jean and pulled her close. She looked up into the face of her savior, the man in the grass skirt.

"Gavin," he whispered.

_Gavin_ Jean thought on the name, or did she say it? She was having a hard time distinguishing between thought and word; but being a telepath, she often replaced thought for word.

This man, who called himself Gavin, drew her closer unto himself, so that only inches spanned the gap between their faces. He was much taller than Jean, and had to look down in order for them to see eye to eye.

Those eyes; those beautiful green eyes; like great shimmering emeralds in his tan face. Jean reached up with her hand, and stroked his cheek with her middle finger. Gavin's hands moved from her back upwards until they cupped her face. Such big hands; such beautiful hands. He stroked her forehead lightly with his thumb, pushing aside an strand of red hair.

Closer their faces came, and Jean felt her head tilting to the side. Closer he came, and his eyes begin to close. Closer she came, and her own eyes begin to dim. Closer he came, and Jean could feel his hot breath. Closer she came, and…

* * *

"Jean! Jean!"

Jean's eyes snapped opened.


	2. Chapter 2

"Jean! Jean!"

Jean's eyes fluttered open as she uttered some drowsy jibber-jabber.

"Jean!"

The sleepy fog cleared, and Jean saw that she was looking into two ruby discs.

"Jean wake up, wake up!"

"Wha…what?" Jean mumbled.

Scott placed his hand on Jean's left cheek with his left hand, while lightly tapping her right cheek with his right hand.

"Jean, what happened?" asked Scott, his voice rang with panic.

"What are you talking about?" asked Jean as she came fully awake. There was a slight edge to her voice. She couldn't help but show a little agitation over being awakened from such a marvelous dream.

"You were screaming," said Scott.

_Bampf_

"Yeah!" exclaimed Kurt, as he materialized out of a cloud of purple and black. "You nearly woke up the whole school."

As if to prove him correct, the heads of several students popped around the corner of Jean's doorway.

"No I didn't," said Jean, slightly pushing away her boyfriends hands.

"_Yes _you did," said Scott. "All of us heard you." He motioned with his hand to the door.

"Well, I'm fine," said Jean, readjusting herself into a more comfortable position on the mattress. She was still upset about being awakened and wanted to get back to sleep as quickly as possible. By chance she could use her powers to "reactivate" the dream.

"Are you sure?" asked Scott, "Maybe it was just a nightmare…or maybe not."

"I'm fine Scott," said Jean pulling the covers up to her neck. "You all can go back to bad. I'm fine."

"But maybe you're not Jean!" pressed Scott. This might be more than a simple nightmare. It could be something worse."

_Here he goes again! Being so overprotective!_ Thought Jean. Or was that _her _thought? She definitely felt as if Scott was getting annoying, and at times he could be a little over protective, but even she knew the dangers of her mental abilities, and that indeed a simple scream in the night could open the flood gates to a world of disaster.

So why such aggressive thoughts. Indeed, the thought had been quite audible, like a voice in her ear rather than a whisper in the head.

"Maybe we should get the professor…"

_Will he just shut up and leave you alone already!?!_ Jean definitely agreed with the voice in her head, but why so much aggression? She knew that Scott genuinely cared for her, and had seen her powers drive her nearly insane too many times not to be concerned when his girlfriend screamed in the night.

"Gee, I hope…

_Don't say it!_

"…I hope your powers aren't…"

_Your powers are none of his business!_

"My powers are none of your business!" yelled Jean sitting straight up in the bed. Had it not been that she had a bit of partiality for the words she would have slapped a hand over her mouth. What on earth had pulled that out of her?

"Jean…I was just…"

_Just what?_

"Just what?" Jean cut him off.

_Trying to control you again?_

"Trying to control me again?"

"We're just concerned Jean!" exclaimed Kurt. Now there was an edge in his voice.

"Yeah," agreed Kitty. No one had seen her head poking _through_ the wall on the other side of the room. "It's not like nothing bad ever happens whenever you go off screaming in the night."

_They're all idiots and fools! They don't understand you! They can't understand you, because they're not like you. _

"You guys just don't understand!" said Jean, her voice still raised in a yell.

"Understand what?" asked Scott, totally taken aback by her random aggression.

_Just tell them to get out and leave you alone! _

"Will you all just get out and leave me alone so that I can get back to sleep!?!" exclaimed Jean falling back on her pillow and pulling the covers up to her neck.

"Jean I…" Scott started to say something, but the better side of him told him that it would be best to leave his tired and apparently "bad-tempered-in-the-early-morning" girlfriend alone.

"Come on Scott," said Kurt. "Let's go back to bed. Maybe "Grumpy" will be a little less unpleasant in the morning!" He shot a bitter look in Jean's direction. He too couldn't help but be a little enraged over being awakened in the middle of the night by a bloodcurdling scream from one of his best friend's rooms, and then be practically thrown out when trying to make sure everything was ok. He frowned and vanished in a purple cloud.

Kitty rolled her eyes, passing back through the wall into her own bed room. The other students also began to disperse, mumbling their own dislikes for Jean's sour attitude.

Scott was the last to leave, purposely trailing along at the back of the group. He stopped in the doorway. If Jean could have seen behind those ruby discs, she would have seen to beautiful eyes, laden with concern. He venture to go against his better self.

"Are you sure…"

There was a slight rumble, and the air seem to crawl with some strange unseen force. The force slammed into Scott's chest, knocking him backwards into the wall across from Jean's dorm room. The same force gripped the door and slammed it shut. Scott ran forward, taking hold of the door handle and turning with all his might, but his muscles were powerless against Jean's telekinesis. He opened his mouth to yell her named, but a voice in his head stopped him.

_It's ok Scott. Just let her rest._

He'd know that voice anywhere.

_Yes professor_ Thought Scott in answer. _I'm just so worried about her. What if…_

_Come to my study, and We'll talk there; further out of Jean's mental-shot_.

"Yes sir."

Scott crossed his arms across his bare chest and he sauntered down the hallway.

_Goodnight Jean_…He thought.

* * *

Jean lay in bed with the covers up to her chin. She felt like crying, screaming, and biting her tongue all at the same time. What in the world had gotten into her? Since when did she so readily speak her mind? Or had the been _her_ mind speaking at all.

She suddenly became very drowsy, and sleep seemed to quickly take her in its cloak of darkness.

A whisper resonated in her ear.

_Now…where were we?_


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm just concerned professor!" exclaimed Scott.

"I know Scott, I know. We are all concerned at times for the greater good of Jean, but we still have to give her space," said the professor quite calmly as to took another sip of his tea.

"Space? Space to do what? Go practically insane?" questioned Scott. "I say we jump on this now before things get possibly out of hand!"

"Scott, you are demanding a thing that can't easily be done." said the professor. "Jean is not a puppet to be controlled. And though I do often fear the severity of the lack of control she possess over her powers, you must realize, Scott, that Jean is a growing, independent, young woman. Yes, in the pass I have kept firmer grips on he, and sheltered her mind under the wing of my own telepathic abilities. But at the present, I have begun to allow her to step into her own reams of independence. Though student she may be, I can't have her feeling like I'm trying to control her all the time. Rather, I must teach _her_ to control her own power."

"But that's the thing professor!" said Scott. "She doesn't seem to have any control."

"She has learned Scott. Jean is no longer the 12 year old girl who had to focus with sweat and tears to levitate a book across the room."

"Yeah, she's that girlfriend of mine who can toss a semi truck with her mind just as easily as she can throw a piece of crumpled paper into the garbage."

Xavier wheeled his chair to Scott's side with a nudge of the control stick. He laid a hand on his shoulder. Scott sighed heavily before continuing.

"I…I just don't want to see anything happen to her…again."

"I know that this may seem hard for you to do Scott, but you must not hound Jean so. You may find that you will succeed in nothing but pushing her away."

"Maybe you could possibly probe her mind, just to make sure that everything's ok."

Xavier frowned. "Scott, I could not do that for two reasons. One, I do not probe a mind unless I find it absolutely necessary, or unless I received permission from the individual. Secondly, as I said before, I am trying to allow Jean some independence. When she was young I did probe her mind quite frequently to scan for negative psychic energy, and to help her increase her mental defenses. But now, Jean is a young woman with a mature mind. Yes, some psychic blocks of my own do still remain sunken deep within her mind, but on the whole, I have allowed Jean to take on the responsibility of defending her own mind. She will not always have me there to guard it for her."

"But professor…"

"Scott," Xavier cut him off. "Like I said, I know that this is going to be a hard thing for you to do, but it must be done. Give Jean her space. I promise you that I will keep a mental eye out for any unusual psychic activity. And if they appear to be of any threat to Jean, we will be sure to deal with it."

Scott sighed again. "Ok professor."

"Alright. Now, if I were you, I'd get back to bed. You're going to need a lot of rest in preparation for your level 4.7 Danger Room finals tomorrow."

With that, Xavier took another sip of his tea, and rolled out of the study.

* * *

The boy sat cross legged in the middle of the room. Nothing had escaped his psychic eye. He had seen everything. He reached out with his mind, latching again to the woman's mental signature. A powerful mind of infinite telepathic energies worked behind grey eyes.

Suddenly, the grey gave way to darkness as the boy's pupils dilated, consuming the entire eyeball. A deep whisper issued from his lips.

"_Now_,_ where were we?_"


	4. Chapter 4

Scott turned the switch on the side of his visor midway. The ruby plate lifted, and a red blast of kinetic energy exploded from his face. His aim was true and the bolt evaporated the hovering razor-bot. But there were still six more left, not to mention the floor-assault bots and the numerous danger-tentacles and death traps.

Another one came hovering in from behind, it's antigravity stabilizer creating a noisy hum. Scott had barely turned around before the air rang with a metallic _szwing_! He had only seconds to react before the razor blade would slice his head off. His hand still at the visor switch, he turned it a mere hair. A thin bolt issued forth, hitting the blade with a greater force than that of its own speed. The blade spiraled to the right and embedded itself in the iron wall.

Above him rushed a howling wind as Storm navigated her way through a tangle of wreathing, iron tentacles. The howl changed in pitch as she stirred the wind direction, lifting and lowering her altitude at a seconds notice. A tentacle with a large claw chomping at the end rose up against her with a metallic _hiss_. Storm's eyes went white with fury, and a bolt of blue lightning seem to fall out of nowhere, frying the hissing arm and short circuiting several others in the process.

Kitty and Rouge were off to the far side of the Danger Room, preoccupied with problems of their own as they fought vigorously to lessen the number of floor-assault bots that readily came onto the Danger Room floor in pairs of four. A big one, with an armor plated lazar cannon for an arm, whirled the titanium bulk at Kitty. The arm passed through her like a knife cutting through air. As soon as she re-solidified, she laid a hefty kick to its breast-hull, knocking the bot to the floor in a twitching scramble. Rouge used quick and evasive maneuvers, throwing her body this way and that to avoid the bone crushing swings of assault-bots, and then slamming her fists into them with a smashing force that knocked the bots completely out of commission.

Jean, who was more to the center of the room, hovered in the air, using her telekinetic powers to deflect lazars, detour razors, and collide the hovering bots into one another. She seemed to be very well now. She had woken up late that morning, but she had woken cheerful, verbally reminiscing upon some wonderful dream. Although she never did reveal the nature of the dream to the others, they were all glade to see that she was back in her normal, cheerful, optimistic mood.

Scott, above all the others, was at a much greater ease. He had dared to speak of the previous nights events, but Jean had silence him with a ready apology. She herself didn't seem to know what had come over her. That part still worried him, but he was glad to see that she hadn't held anything against him.

Now, she focused her mind, carefully managing her powers in controlled amounts to accomplish her means. Sure it would have been easy to go crazy and just take out everything (and possibly everyone) in a mega kinetic blast, but this test was about speed and control; speed in the use of power, but control in the manner of usage. Too many slips on either side, and they all would fail.

Two machines hovered speedily towards her. The one on the right struck first, releasing two whizzing blades. The one on the left hovered further left, concealing itself within her blind spot. But she didn't to see it to hear to the air-cutting spin of the blades. Jean adjusted her mind, reaching out and gripping the blades from the machine on her right with her mind. Allowing the blades to carry their initial speed, she merely curved their direction, the spin of the razors causing them to turn in a great arch. The blades intersected the path of the razors from the left hand machine, reflecting them back at the bot. There was a loud rasp as the bot was sliced into three perfect layers and fell to the floor. The blades continued on their spherical path and quickly return to the source, slicing through the right hand bot like a knife through butter.

Jean looked below her and gasped at the sight. The floor was crawling mad with ground-assault-bots! Rouge, Kitty, Scott, Spike and Kurt were nearly swallowed up in a tumultuous sea of iron soldiers. She quickly lowered her altitude and join the group in attacking the ground troops. She swung out with her left hand, lashing her mental power like a whip. 10 assault-bots catapulted backward, taking out several others in their fall. She pushed forward with her right hand, and three more bots flew backwards, their upper limbs and head detached from their bodies.

Suddenly, a sharp and burning pain shot through her back and an explosion of light from behind reflected off of the metal hulls of the machines marching towards her. She knew that she had been hit. With a grunt to throw off the pain, she spun about, one hand behind her, the other in front of her. She closest machines at the forefront of her surroundings were flailed backwards in pieces, knocking the ones behind them completely out of commission with the force of which they collided. But that still wasn't enough! It seemed that for every one bot that was taken out, 4 more took its place.

She heard a cry to her left, and saw Rouge struggling in the grip of an enormous, iron tentacle. Kitty leaped forward, phasing through the tentacle and gripping Rouge, passing both of them out of the iron clutch. Not far from those two, Scott's eyes were in full fire as he issued the kinetic beams at full blast, shattering 6 to 10 bots at a time, but even that wasn't enough to lessen the overflow of machines.

Then, in that single moment…it happened…


	5. Chapter 5

Xavier sat in his wheelchair with both hands folded, calmly observing the chaos below through the Danger Room observation window. His eyes shifted towards Logan as a guttural scowl exited the Wolverine's mouth. He didn't have to ask Logan (for he already knew) but he did anyway.

"Is there a problem?"

"Yeah," snapped Logan. "They're doin a complete bang-up job!"

The professor returned his eyes to the window. He smiled.

"I think that they are actually doing very well, aside from a few strategic errors."

"A few strategic errors?" echoed Logan. "The whole simulation is a complete disaster if you ask me."

"Well," said Xavier, "If they continue at this rate, at least they will pass."

"_If_," grunted Logan.

"Mind you, possibly a very _low_ pass," chuckled the professor. Logan wasn't amused. He himself took the competitive aspects of the Danger Room far more seriously than any of the other students. He, personally, considered himself to be the supreme champion of the Danger Room, which was not far from the truth..

"These kids will never amount to anything in the real world if they don't get their sorry act together!"

Xavier lifted an eyebrow, but ignored the comment. Though Logan may have come hard showing it, he knew that the Wolverine _did_ indeed have a genuine concern for the kids (which motivated his high, and sometimes outrageous, standards) whether he wanted to admit it or not.

They watched in silence for a few more seconds, mentally calculating each error and accomplishment, formulating a skeleton score for the over all test. They would leave the precise calculations to the computer.

"Alright," said the professor, pressing several buttons before turning a red knob on the control board. "Time to turn up the heat." He only adjusted the knob about three more notches. Logan grunted, reached forward, and turned the knob five notches more.

"It's ok to break a sweat, Xavier," said Logan sarcastically.

"Yes, but there is a problem when one becomes dehydrated," said the professor with a bit of a grin. Logan took his meaning.

"Then let giv'em some water," he replied, heading for observation lift that would take him to the Danger Room entranceway.

The professor took his meaning, and did not stop him from heading to the Danger Room. He merely shook his head, though still smiling.

It wasn't long before Logan had entered the Danger arena and went to hacking away with the metal appendages. Metallic strips flew in all directions as Logan bulldozed through the mechanical ground troops. But the students were so engrossed with their own problems, that none of them even noticed that the Wolverine was in their presence. The professor suddenly turned his head to the far right side of the room as a screamed issued from that direction. It was Jean. She had been hit! She remained on the floor for a few minutes before rising up suddenly, releasing a blast of telekinetic energy in all directions, catapulting machines across the room.

And then…it happened.

An energy, a dark psychic energy seemed to settle over the entire building. It manifested as an ominous, echo-like ring, resonating in Xavier's mind.

A voice! He could here a voice…but it was quite indistinguishable having an extremely deep pitch at one moment and an ear piercing high one the next. Xavier's mind went into immediate action and he covered the mansion in the canopies of his mental scanners. The dark energy seemed to be resonating from a single source.

JEAN?

No! It couldn't have been, but it was. No, no it wasn't. It was Jean, but it wasn't Jean. The energy seemed to resonated from Jean but had a personal mental signature, completely different from Jean's own mental fingerprint. It was as if there was a separate mind inside of Jean's head. The energy came from her, but the source was _not_ her.

Before the professor could probe, the unexpected happened. A pain, a mental pain, like a dagger to the head, pierced the very center of Xavier's mind. He immediately tried to raise mental defenses, but was startled to realize that there were no forces trying to "invade" his mind. They were suppressing it! His mind became heavy and foggy, like a towel when it becomes heavy with water. He struggled to overcome the suppression, but it was physically compared to lifting a ton with one's bare hands. It's nearly impossible! All the while, the pain increased and grew. He lost focus of Jean's mental signature in his own struggles. In the mental chaos, he lost all track of psychic energy. The negative force was hidden behind a veil of cloudy suppression.


End file.
